mtrsteve

Yeah, 270 is rough. Waiting to see what that will be in CAD. I did not purchase Rivendell or Barad Dur day 1, but I probably will get this one if the GWP does in fact include two unique minifigs. I still need to find a way to get the Nazgul from the last GWP so I can keep my complete LotR fig collection going...

Likely nothing that wouldn't be anachronistic, except maybe a printed book or tile in Gandalf's cart with a nod to his time looking through the archives for information on the ring (Isildurs account of the ring?). But if we don't mind breaking timeline a touch, or at least being cheeky with it, you could make some nod to Merry/Pippins time in Rohan/Gondor, like maybe Lego makes a tomato as a reference to Denthors famous scene with Pippin?

Oh they absolutely are taking resources away. Set development time, unique sticker sheets, etc. Any resources spent on brickheadz are resources not spent elsewhere (maybe that wouldn't have been a different LotR set, but it COULD have been). Whether this effect is substantial or playing any role in not getting playsets is certainly debatable. But it absolutely takes up Lego R&D resources no matter how you split it.

In the interest of moving things along, I'll start with a movie comment and end with a Lego one. There are some fan edits of the Hobbit trilogy out there that recut the three movies down to about 4.5 hours, and they really changed my opinion. There's a great movie in there amongst the bloat. Highly recommend (presuming you own copies of the movies, I believe these fan edits are free to check out). Now, back to Lego, I agree with the above poster that RoP sets could really be great. There are some locations and characters in it that would translate into Lego better than it even was on screen IMO. It's starting to feel like that ship has sailed for Valinor though. Whether it's an IP rights issue or just an interest on Legos behalf issue?

Imma go out on a limb and say we aren't getting any LotR sets with yellow skin tone.

The Rangers were in the movie too, you just couldn't see them cause they good at what they do XD

Yes, autocorrect FTL. Edit FTW

Yeah, that might rule out Bombadil, but I think they could do semi generic Dunedain Ranger without issue, same way they "didnt" do Gloin in Rivendel

It really will be interesting to see how they handle the minifig line up for bag end. As others have already pointed out, leaning into Bilbo's party with lots of hobbits is one option but risks sort of generic minifig (noone really has a strong opinion of what farmer cotton should look like). Giving a nod to the hobbit with some or all of the dwarfs is another option, and if I'm not mistaken can even still be LotR timeline as Bilbo continied to be visited by dwarfs from time to time. But mold/unique piece issues could get in the way. I wonder if there's some third path they could take, like including some Dunedain rangers watching over the shire, or a little Tom Bombadil/Goldberry and old man willow side build?

Again, and I recognize this is being pedantic, the 1/2 inch plastic sphere has a value of about 5c. That is the material manufacturing cost. We as a marketplace of people have added some $59 of *emotional value* to it due to subject matter, 'rarity', etc, and decided we get enough enjoyment or satisfaction out of it that the *purchase* is worth that. Again, nothing wrong with that. I just think it's healthier to recognize that the *item* is not worth $60. A huge part of that price is the *experience* of buying and owning it. This is the collector mindset, of which I am one. So I think we agree in essence, I just find that it helps me stay sane in our consumer society to separate the value of the object from the value of the pursuit. Edit: the Zamor sphere happens to be a particularly salient example of this divorce in value. Once you get into sets and Minifigures, subjectives like the beauty of the object also enter the picture and introduce significant subjective value, but again that's largely emotional value.

I would counter that just because someone is willing to pay the price, doesn't mean the price isn't ridiculous, and certainly doesn't make the object 'worth' the price. A bunch of what's baked into that price is emotional valence. The fear of missing out, the desire or even compulsion to complete a set or collection. Those emotional forces will lead people to convince themselves to pay the price. $60 for a 1/2" plastic ball IS disgusting, and IS ridiculous. But to your defence, it certainly doesn't make you a bad person for expecting to receive market price.

I hope we're all just being a little cheeky. Brickheadz are definitely. Love it or hate it offering though. Looking forward to more deets on bag end, and about to order barad dur tonight when insiders weekend kicks off! (Full disclosure, I'm only a completionist for my minifig collection, so there's lots of sets, especially hobbit and Brickheadz ones, that just never interested me too much)

As someone who got raked over the coals for saying the LotR line is back because technically it's Icons and Brickheadz, the lesson I learned is none of this new wave counts towards completion of the LotR theme, because none of it has that theme as a label. As others have pointed out, individual collectors can draw whatever line they want for completionism. Anyone who naively added the middle earth brick heads to 'complete' their LotR collection actually just has an incomplete Brickheadz theme collection now. ;)

Now I'm picturing a reskin of hagrid into balrog, and can't stop laughing

Yes, you are the only one Yeah, I'll agree scale seems inconsistent in the movies. And I bet you're right that brickbuilt is more likely, given recent Lego trends. I think either could be done really well, and I'd be happy to see either hit the shelves! Part of why I'd personally like a bigfig one is that I could always MOC a brickbuilt one, and I've had a shot at it before, but I can't really MOC a bigfig.

I was judging off one of the few wide angle shots I could find where there is no perspective magnification occuring. So even within movie canon, that scale is present. I'll die on my hill. Bigfig scale is perfect for a balrog. Whether that's what you'd *prefer* or not is reasonable to disagree on. https://youtu.be/DgNrvnY1mo0?si=ZciR6pvpJRaLNgGK at 1:50 for the reference. They definitely do have him seem bigger in other shots, but lots of those have perspective issues as you say. Parallax makes it impossible to guage

I've literally got the wide angle shot from the movie paused with gandalf and the balrogs on the bridge. The balrogs is standing about 2.5 times the height of gandalf. A big fig is STILL totally reasonable proportions for the movie balrogs, and arguably too big for the book ones. They just seeeeeem bigger. Especially if you add some wings sprouting from the back of the bigfig, it would feel totally to scale.

This is not correct. Canonically balrogs are at most twice the size of a human, or even just the size of a large man. Big fig size would totally suffice.

Sauron-mech just made my day. I'm gonna MOC one after work now for sure.

Wait, I just reread this, are these all actually available parts?

These look great! Middle Earth CMF lines would be so good.

None of the theatres near me are playing it. I would have to drive 350km to go... I haven't ruled it out...

I would sooner buy LotR mechs than brickheadz... Come to think of it, merry and Pippin riding on treebeard isn't that far off, so we kind of already have one!

I feel like the first half or so of this list are no brainers. The second half I think you get into territory where the people on this sub would be excited, but the wider consumer audience might not be so hype (I.e. might not sell).

Then don't. The set looks fine as is. If you are hell bent on making it taller, the modular nature means you can do this any number of ways. Buying a whole second set would be the easy but expensive approach. Using the instructions to bricklink some parts and MOC up your own section is a harder but cheaper way. But either way, that's on you for deciding that the proportions need to be different, no one has done you an injustice. Guess what, if you realllllly want it to reach 'full glory' , you need to buy at least 6 of these and make it 10 feet tall. Oh the humanity!